Rachel Podger: Life Lessons

I was born in England but my mother is from Hamburg, and we moved to Germany when I was still young. Although both my parents are very musical, I didn’t quite have the traditional string-player childhood. Music at home was more likely to involve singing some Buxtehude and playing some Sweelinck, or the like. There were a lot of trio sonatas, too, with me on the second part as my older brother Julian was still the more advanced violinist. In one slow movement, I remember that my first note was so long I didn’t know how to count it. My father, who has the patience of a saint, wrote on the beats and showed me how it worked in relation to the bass-line, which my mother was playing on the cello. It was one of those moments when all of a sudden something becomes absolutely clear.